Hey guys! Sorry for the hiatus in blogging! How's our singing? Did you enjoy it? Hahaha Merry Christmas! Oh it's boxing day today! : ) And so today we will be telling you all some statistics our polar bear friends kind of want you to know about. Here it goes!
1) Hunting of polar bears
Polar bears, as you know, are hunted for several reason, such as for their fur. Polar bears in northen Eurasia in the 18th century hunted around 400-500 polar bears a year, and since the 20th century, the numbers have more than doubled to 1200-1500 polar bears being killed per year!
Look at all the happy people and the poor poley bear! : (
Since 1994, more than 800 sport-hunted polar bear trophies have been imported into the U.S. They made a sport to hunt for polar bears and people actually create trophies for killing a polar bear? Nope, trophies actually mean their prize, which is the body of the polar bear they "earned" from hunting the polar bear. So more than 800 polar bear bodies were imported back to U.S. Hmm...
Wow I started this post morbidly. Let's see if it gets lighter!
2) Climate change
Polar bears are actually reducing more than 30% within 3 generations (45years), primarily due to climate change. As of 2008, the global population of polar bears is 20,000-25,000 and they are declining. Don't think 20,000 sounds like a lot, it's so many times lesser than the population of people in this tiny red dot! Comparing to other animals, example dogs, total population of dogs some people say 17 million some say 1 billion, (I'm not sure, no one is, they just keep increasing) but whatever the number, it's a far cry from the global population of polar bears! Somebody panic!
Warmer temperatures also cause the polar bear feeding season to reduce. Polar bears now weigh 230kg, compared to 290kg in 1980. Between 1987 and 2004, the population of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay declined by 22%.
